Musings on my job search journey

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A Warning to HR Professionals

Alert: At all costs, beware of people who have been out of the job market for some time. There’s nothing good they could have been up to. They might have doing irrelevant things like learning new skills, volunteering in your community, raising children and perhaps even travelling. If they did work during this time, it might have been part-time, at a less senior level, or even worse, in a different field.

As we all know, unrelated experience is a killer – you do not want to bring someone into your firm who might have a different perspective on life. It’s disruptive to the status quo, and can make current employees uneasy to have to interact with someone who is not exactly like them. Worse, it could lead to changes in business practices.

That’s why your resume screening software is SO important. The only relevant skill in determining future on-the-job success is the ability to put the right key words from your past job or two in the right place in your resume. The software captures that ability perfectly, and screens out all of the silly nonsense about judgement, motivation, and other irrelevant intangibles. Keep up the good work!

UPDATE: There is reliable field data that suggests that people who have been out of the job market are blood-sucking zombies. They will infect your current workforce if you let them in. Skeptical? How else can you explain current societal obsessions with zombies and vampires? How about the rise of virtual reality shows? Those zombies are at the gates of your corporate campuses, trying to get in by any means. DO NOT let them in!

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OK, I got that off my chest. Now back to being relentlessly positive, and the coffee shops! And yes, I know there are some HR professionals who do get it, and realize that you can lose some good candidates by relying too heavily on screening software.